Meh, fans have somewhere between very little and absolutely nothing to do with how a team does on the ice. But I'd also be the first to tell you that the games are nowhere near as fun as they are with a packed house that is just going absolutely crazy like we had at the home opener.
Yeah, that HockeyWriters article postulates as weve seen elsewhere be it Florida, Colorado, Vancouver, Ottawa & elsewhere either in the past or currently that playing to half or 2/3rds full houses is somehow deflating, that the players sit on the bench stewing about it... "no energy here Man, why bother, no one cares"..... give... me... a... break. All their thinking about is their next shift. Hell, I can remember as a kid in the 60's attending games at Maple Leaf Gardens, packed house yet as quiet as the grave. Now THAT can be disconcerting to a player out on the ice, leave you wondering if you by mistake showed up at the wrong arena & walked right into a Zombie Convention. Or alternatively, the old Spectrum in Philadelphia, Chicago Stadium, you WISHED there was no crowd or that it only be half full. Some people, buy a ticket, think its also a licence to go nuts, misbehave, pick a fight with a player from out of town sitting in the Penalty Box, throwup on the patron sitting in front of them, scream obscenities. Fun.... wow.
Look. The Canes havent made the Playoffs for a decade. Who's fault is that? Not the fans. That speaks to Ownership. Where the buck starts & stops. The well from which everything else flows & permeates. Ripple effect. Attitude critical, key and as far as I'm concerned the problem is & always has been Peter Karmanos himself. Not the various General Managers, Coaches, Scouts, talent. He & only he is responsible for all of this, driven the franchise right into the ditch. The market is not failing hockey or the NHL, Peter Karmanos has failed the market. He's done a lot of great things for the game over the years no question, loves the game of that theres no doubt but as an owner, penurious to the extreme, avaricious, intransigent, duplicitous.
I've known Jim Rutherford for nearly 50yrs and as both a player not blessed with a lot of talent it was his work ethic that got him to the Show and that ethic & discipline carried on & over into his long tenure with PK. When he left after essentially being handcuffed for several seasons prior to his departure the foundations truly cracked. Whats transpired since appalling.... understanding what Karmano's was apparently looking for & the asking price for the franchise... suspiciously, the almost deliberate mis-management & dysfunction on the ice.... bringing in Don Waddell who Thank God has little to do with hockey-ops but who's very presence is disquieting to say the least... now this idiocy of "Fake News", wannabe owner trying to cobble together investors.... for one to imagine this shaping up to look a lot like Atlanta Thrashers Redux, well, Conspiracy Theory or Conspiracy Fact?
I dunno the answer to that. No one does. But My God. If it does transpire that that its Fact & not Theory and Karmano's has been playing the market & the NHL facilitates a sale for relo then Jacobs & Bettman need to go, resign. Whatever sensible sane members currently sitting around the BOG's table staging a palace coup & getting rid of these idiots once & for all. Something that should have already have happened in fact & years ago. They lost the colors in Atlanta, theyve needlessly staged lockouts, engage in Union Busting, Restrictive Trade Practices, Leagues run as an Autocracy, like Gangland Prohibitioners, way behind the 8Ball in actually "growing the game" & in growing revenues despite the braggadocio to the opposite, priced themselves out of markets they should be in & should have been in for years.... just goes on & on. And now this, another story that wont go away, a deal that possibly cannot be done in North Carolina because?..... Peter can ding someone full pop if given portability? This whole situation is really quite sickening and one I try to avoid thinking about. To think that whats transpiring, and all the dots connecting could actually happen.... seriously disturbing.
